


A (Mis)adventure in Wendimoor

by ShadowManShenanigans



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amanda-centric, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-episode: s02e06 Girl Power, Sleeping Beauty (fairytale), Temporary Character Death, Wendimoor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:35:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowManShenanigans/pseuds/ShadowManShenanigans
Summary: The Sleeping Beauty AU nobody asked for.In which the Mage and his Apprentice are enamoured by fairytales, and the Rowdy 3 (all five of them) pay the price for it.





	A (Mis)adventure in Wendimoor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everythingremainsconnected](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingremainsconnected/gifts), [Takada_Saiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/gifts).



> ****  
>    
>  _Read the tags, please._   
>    
>  ~~All I can promise is a happy ending.~~

Martin whistled, short and sharp, and the other three Rowdies stopped, heads turning as one to observe their leader. “Something ain’t right,” he said, and they moved to him — they had learned early on to trust his instincts, to get close when things smelled like they were going south. To protect each other. 

“Do you smell it?” said Cross. 

“Is it bad?” said Gripps. 

“Can we smash it?” said Vogel. 

Martin took a step forward and inhaled deeply. The scents of Wendimoor were similar to their world, but  _ weird _ ; slightly off, like a fruit just past the point of ripe. Then a waft of something musty, something rotten. 

A man in a white suit stepped out of the trees from a point of space where there had previously been nothing and no one, and drove knife into Martin’s stomach. 

The Rowdy choked, driven to his knees as the man pushed him down and twisted the knife, and the other Rowdies howled and leapt forward as the white-suited man raised a glowing, curved stick that spat geometric shapes of light — Gripps, Cross, and Vogel were frozen in place, and Martin coughed up blood as the man kicked him to the ground and wrenched the knife free. 

“An interesting turn of events,” said the Mage. “These are the warriors who protect the Witch Queen — strange to see them so far from her side.” 

“So easily defeated,” sighed Suzie. “They’re not particularly strong, are they?” 

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss their strength,” said the Mage, wiping the blade of his knife in the grass and frowning when the movement only added dirt and torn grass to the sticky mess. “They are powerful, and more powerful here than they know. It’s tricky how transdimensional travel works — some magics translate equally, and others increase exponentially. Others lose it entirely. But here…” The Mage gripped Martin’s hair and forced his head back, smiling when he saw the words inscribed on the Rowdy’s neck. _In control._ Martin snarled, blood on his teeth, and the Mage released his hair to let him slump back to the earth. “These creatures are not entirely human, not like you and I. They feed on  _ emotion _ . Allow them to gain access to yours, and you can be drained of your powers, or killed.” He grinned. “But stop them before they get a chance to latch on, and they can be captured.” 

“Can we use them?” said Suzie. “Use their power?” 

The Mage sighed. “No,” he said. “Unfortunately, not even the humans from their world could find a way to completely control them, only manipulate them.” 

“How about the Witch Queen?” said the woman. “Can we use them to get to her?” 

“An excellent idea,” said the Mage distractedly. “What is a good story from your world we could use?” he said, gazing through Suzie rather than at her. “What fable could we use to destroy her?” 

Suzie looked down at the bleeding Rowdy at their feet, who struggled — and failed — to rise despite the blood dripping from his mouth and pooling from the wound in his stomach, bleeding badly despite the desperate press of his hands to the wound. He was dying, he just didn’t seem to want to know it yet. “Sleeping Beauty?” she said, tipping her head to the side. The story had always amused her — she had always been sympathetic to Maleficent, to the one faery who no one gave proper tribute to. “We can always do the old version, and serve them as meals to her when she arrives.” 

“How positively horrible,” said the Mage, and crouched next to Martin, who spat a mouthful of blood at him — the projectile splattered across the Mage’s vest, but he was unconcerned. A simple cleaning spell would clear the insult away. “Little Warrior,” he said, “you will be the damsel in distress for this tale. The  _ bait _ .” He caught Martin’s arm and hauled him upright, ignoring Martin’s pained snarls and holding him up when the Rowdy’s legs refused to support him. A pool of blood, smeared by their passing, oozed on the uneven earth. 

“Let’s do it proper,” said Suzie, and summoned a spinning wheel, one which held a gleaming spindle. She helped the Mage drag Martin to it, holding his hand with strange tenderness that the Rowdy did not have the strength to pull away from. “Sweet dreams, Warrior,” she purred. “This tale won’t have a happy ending.” 

They pressed his down, his finger bled from the prick of the spindle, and Martin slumped in their arms in a sleep like death. “Perfect,” said the Mage, and summoned a bed lined with brightly coloured flowers that smelled both vile and soothing. “He will live — so long as he sleeps.” 

“And when he wakes,” said Suzie, barely able to contain her giggles as they laid out the sleeping Rowdy on the bed in a facsimile of peaceful rest, “then she’ll have killed him. How delicious!” 

The Mage turned to the rest of the inert Rowdy 3, smiling widely at the horrified expressions iced to their faces. “You will obey me,” he said, and the wand in his hand glowed an unpleasant yellow. “You will go to your mistress and give her this message…” 

 

—

 

“It ain’t right,” said Gripps. He traipsed through the mud and the pouring rain beside Cross, with Vogel a muttering shape trailing after them. “We shouldn’t be doing this.” 

“Can’t  _ not _ do it,” said Cross. His feet moved of their own accord, carrying him on and on through the torrential downpour, the sodden earth, and he knew his brothers were caught under the same geas, unable to stop even to tie undone shoelaces — Vogel had tripped twice before he noticed them, but his feet refused to pause to let him stop long enough to retire them, and he had had to hop on one foot to appease the magic while shoving the laces into the top of the boot, just to keep from tripping again. “We gotta find the Boss.” 

There had been no discussion, after their rescue, on what their next step would be. They would stay with the one who had rescued them, the one who had been nothing but good and adventurous and  _ delicious _ for them since the first brick flying through a window, the returned one hitting the van. 

Drums played wildly from within a garage. Painted nails in the back of a moving van. Dancing on dry earth, kicking up dust and spinning, laughing, yelling. That was their Drummer, their Amanda, their Boss. Martin had said they would follow her, and it was truth, sure as the moon was weird there and sure as the tattoos Gripps had marked in all their skins, binding as an unbreakable vow. 

Where she went, they would follow. 

Cross reached out and took Vogel’s hand, saving the youngest Rowdy from faceplanting as he tripped over a root — instead of his poor ragged shoelaces — and Cross set his jaw, feeling sick against the vomit-tasting magic dragging them on. Leaving Martin behind had hurt, hurt worse than waking to find himself alone in Blackwing, to wake again knowing that despite the proximity of his brothers, they would likely not survive this time. 

Drummer had saved them from certain death. She had pulled them through the floor with magic and water and love, and she was the Boss. She would know what to do. 

Cross didn’t want to think about Martin lying in the earth, covered in his own blood. 

Didn’t want to think about how, with each step, they were bringing their family to their doom. 

“There,” said Vogel, pointing with his free hand and fingers tightening on Cross’s. Gripps mumbled something in acknowledgement, too low for Cross to hear through the unrelenting rain — this place seemed able to cry when they couldn’t, to sob with thunder and let the skies display the despair the Rowdies felt in their hearts. “There it is!” 

‘It’ being the village of the Bofuki Nepoo, the bright souls who had taken them in and whose leader had shown Amanda the way to set them free. ‘It’ being where they had left their Drummer in search of the army she had seen in her vision. 

They had found the army, but what else they had found was far worse. 

 

— 

 

A howl broke through the rain, pierced the fabric of her tent, and Amanda jolted from a deep sleep. It was dark — she hastened to light the red-glassed lamp she had been given by one of the Bofuki Nepoo, and pulled up her hood before ducking under the tent flap and out into the rain. It was cold, and drenched her immediately, and she listened — had that not been a Rowdy cry she had heard? 

Another howl, followed by a second, reached her ears, and she ran for the noise, slipping in the mud and dodging drowsy Bofuki who had been roused by the noise. The lantern was not bright, and she raised it high, squinting in the dark and wiping at her face to try and see through the rain. 

“Boss!” came a voice, and Vogel burst into the pool of light, his eyes glinting in the red light, hand in hand with Cross, and Gripps at his side. “Boss, we gotta go, we gotta go back!” 

“Back where?” said Amanda. She hugged them, felt them shivering under her touch — they were sodden, and a cloud of worry and concern and fear hung over them. She looked at their wet faces, glanced at the dark beyond their little circle of light. “Where’s Martin?” 

Vogel broke into sobs, and threw himself at her — she hugged him tightly and looked to Gripps, who shook his head. She looked to Cross, horror spreading through her very bones, and the helpless grief on his face said it all. 

“No,” she whispered, and reached out her hand. Cross and Gripps came to her and they embraced, Vogel’s sobs adding no discernable amount of water to her drenched shirt, and she trembled with emotions she didn’t have words for. “Where is he?” she said again, and felt Cross’s grip on her tighten. 

“We can’t—” he tried to say, and something  _ stopped _ him — she smelled an unpleasant odour as he choked on his words, tried to speak again and failed. “We have to go back,” he said, echoing Vogel’s words, and they rang true and false all at once to her ears. 

“Is he alive?” she asked quietly, dreading the answer and unable to go without it, and felt Cross nod. “Then we go get him back,” she said, stepping out of their embrace, kissing Vogel’s cheek as he let go and wiped his streaming nose, eyes spilling tears that mixed with the rain and the dirt that already smeared his face. 

“We need to go back,” said Gripps, but their expressions held a despairing warning — something was very, very wrong in Wendimoor, and Amanda was going to put it right. 

She needed to get Martin back. 

She  _ needed _ him. 

Amanda looked back at the village, saw the Bofuki disappearing back into their homes, unconcerned with the going-ons of late-night reunions and tragedies unfolding in the dark. She raised her lantern and met the gaze of each of her Rowdies in turn. “We will go back there,” she said, “wherever  _ there _ may be, and we will get him back. I promise. I’m not going to lose any of you again.” 

They nodded, as one, eerily in sync, but there was no joy in their eyes, only fear. Regret. Some unspoken heartache that the spell they were under refused to relinquish the words for, and Amanda was no mind reader. But she trusted her Rowdies, trusted her strength in this wild world to be the sword she didn’t have in the old one, trusted that no matter what happened, she would fight to protect the crazy guys who had invited her into their van, their lives, and their hearts. They had given her a piece of themselves, and she would protect them until her dying breath. 

There was one thing she knew for certain, as she followed the Rowdies into the dark woods, one thing she swore on her newfound magic and to the aching, empty spot where Martin should be. 

She was never letting them out of her sight again. 

 

—

 

The Rowdies led her through the dark until the lantern died, until the sun rose and tendrils of light crept through the trees as the rain faded into a sunlit drizzle and was gone, until they reached a river and stopped, milling about at the bank and muttering amongst themselves before turning to Amanda, brows creased and eyes worried. Amanda was exhausted, and she could only imagine that as little sleep as she had managed that night, before their arrival, that her boys had had even less. 

“Trail’s gone,” said Gripps. The others exchanged glances, then nodded their own confirmation. They shifted from foot to foot, ill at ease, and Amanda swallowed hard. Every minute they spent was another minute without one of their own, and she could see their distress growing with every hour. 

“No trail here,” said Cross, and wiggled his fingers at eye level, pulling a face. Amanda stared at him, at his brothers gaped. 

“How’d you do that?” said Gripps. “We can’t even—” he choked, coughed, then copied the movement Cross had made, a small grin creeping over his tired features. 

“Hey, Boss!” said Vogel, and mimicked his brothers — all three of them pointing at each other and wiggling their fingers like crazy. “Guess, guess, guess! It’s charades!” 

Amanda tried to get herself to focus, beyond her sore feet and her heavy heart, the tumultuous feelings weighing on her chest. “Charades,” she repeated, and nodded. “Okay, so you can’t  _ say _ what it is,” she said, and they nodded violently, a hint of their old liveliness reaching their eyes. “Can I make guesses?” 

“I think?” said Cross. “Try to guess, give it a try, Drummer.” 

“Wind?” said Amanda, and they all shook her heads, chortling at her answer — Gripps elbowing Vogel, shaking his head, and that set Vogel off into full-out giggles. “Not wind, then.” She made the same motion with her own hands, trying to think of what they could possibly associated with it. 

“Like you, only bad,” said Cross, and looked shocked when he was able to say the words. “Not the Boss, but someone’s Boss—” he stopped, expression angry, and she realized he had given her just enough clues. 

“A witchakookoo like me?” she said, and they whooped, bouncing in their elation at her guess, and she bit her lip. “Bad witchakookoo,” she added, and Cross nodded. “She—” he shook his head, hard, and she tried, “he?” He nodded, and she frowned. “Bad wizard, then.” 

“And,” said Gripps, and tilted his head meaningfully, and Cross’s eyes widened, and he nodded. 

“Two!” said Vogel, holding up two fingers to make sure he was being clear. He said nothing else, just grinned, and Cross nodded. 

“Two,” he said, “one bad and one-” he paused, then said slowly, carefully, “bad lady.” Nothing happened, and he grinned. “One and one bad lady!” 

“Okay,” said Amanda. “One wizard and one bad lady.” With mad magic skills, if they could put a spell on her boys with enough strength to prevent them from telling her things she needed to know. She didn’t dare try to mess with it — she might hurt them worse, and she had no idea how to break someone else’s spells, or even if it were  _ possible _ — so she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said. “You did real good, guys.” They smiled at her, their rush of energy fading back into weary heartache, and she lifted her chin. She needed to be strong. Smart. Figure this out. “Did you go through the river?” 

The Rowdies exchanged glances, the shook their heads, turning this way and that and searching with senses she didn’t have, ones they couldn’t explain. Amanda’s fingers curled in her pockets, her nails digging into her palms as she waited, knowing patience was her best option, despite the anxiety of waiting. She prayed to whatever gods were listening in the backwoods of Wendimoor that her boys would be successful, that they would find the trail again. 

“This way,” said Gripps, pointing left — north, by the position of the sun, along the riverbank, and Cross and Vogel looked and sniffed and nodded in agreement. 

“We follow you, Drummer,” said Cross, and there was more to his words than the way they fell into step alongside and behind her — Cross to her right and Gripps and Vogel at the rear, her loyal guardian Rowdies. 

“We’ll get him back,” she said quietly. Any other option was  _ not _ an option, not to her. 

If she had to fight all of Wendimoor, she would get him back. 

 

—

 

“This is it,” said Cross, coming to halt in front of a huge bramble patch that towered as tall as the trees they had left behind hours ago — they had traveled through an enormous meadow and frightened some wild unicorns and some sort of cat-bird creature with black owl eyes before the ground had turned rocky and the air cold. Coastal air, if Amanda could remember their one family vacation to the ocean. Years ago, before either her or Todd had gotten — or in his case, faked — pararibulitis. “That’s the way.” 

Amanda looked up at the wall of brambles that stretched as far as the eye could see, and back at the tall Rowdy. He looked annoyed, like the words he was saying were not the words that he meant. “This wasn’t hear when you left, was it?” she said, and he shook his head, grabbing Vogel’s hand before the younger Rowdy could touch the brambles. 

“Bad magic,” said Gripps, and she understood. 

“Okay,” she said. “The wizard and the bad lady don’t want us to find them.” The Rowdies looked at each other, then back at her, and she tried again. “They  _ do _ want us to find them, but they don’t want it to be easy?” 

They nodded, and she took Vogel’s other hand when he reached for the brambles again — Gripps had hold of Cross’s free hand, the lot of them a line in front of the massive hedge, and she looked up at it and sighed. 

“Don’t suppose any of you have an axe?” she said. They shook their heads and she sighed again, then she smiled. “Boys, find me some water.” 

She had a plan. 

Gripps found her a stream, one they had stepped over on their way through the meadow — it was a good few hundred yards from the wall of brambles, and Amanda felt safer with a little distance between it and them. There was no one reason for her uneasiness — it was in part the eerie silence of the brambles, in part the massive height of its mass, the way it felt  _ hungry _ to her in a way she could not explain. She knelt in the mud by the water and put her hands in — it was freezing, and she gasped, her Rowdies crouching and crowding in close to her, radiating warmth at her sides, and she gave her reflection a feral grin. 

“I know what I want,” she said, and closed her eyes. She was oblivious to the blue light crackled to life at her fingertips, spreading through the pool, oblivious to the way her eyes changed as she opened them to peer into the water. The water shivered — whatever had lived there had long since fled — and a wooden handle appeared in her hand, another piercing through it like a stake, the third with the axe’s blade embedded in her other forearm, and the fourth between her fingers. She gasped, the pain almost more than she could bear, and she felt three hands settle on her shoulders, strong and warm and firm. 

“Boss,” whispered Vogel, on her left, and she stared at the blood that was spreading in the water, billowing out from her mangled limbs. 

“I make the reality,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “This isn’t real unless I make it so.” She moved her hands, and it  _ hurt _ — she screamed. “ _ I make this reality _ ,” she snarled. “They aren’t real  _ unless I make them so _ .” 

She thought about her Rowdies, crowded at her back, thought about their concern for her, and their  _ trust _ in her. She thought about Wakti, showing her how to summon a knife, how she had prevailed then, alone with a strange woman in a land she didn’t know. She thought about Martin, separated from them and alone, possibly hurt and definitely in danger, and she roared.    


The sound that came from her mouth had never been expelled from her lungs before, and her Rowdies fell back as lightning arced from the water along her arms, sharp and bright and powerful, and the axes leapt from her body — her perfectly whole, unharmed body — and landed in the water, clean of blood. Amanda sat back in the grass with a gasp as the Rowdies scooped up the summoned weapons, and she was still breathing hard when Vogel held out the last axe to her — the handle shiny and black and slick with water, the blade gleaming. 

“You okay, Boss?” he said, and she smiled. 

“Let’s go break some shit,” she said, and they howled in response. 

Gripps helped her to her feet and she took the offered axe from Vogel — they ran as one across the field to the brambles, and hacked and rent and screamed until the brambles caved beneath their wild assault. The branches snapped and curved, some whipping back to leave angry red scrapes and cuts on their bare skin, and some with the sharpest of thorn pierced through fabric to cut and tear at cloth and skin. 

Bloody and hoarse, the four pushed on for what seemed an eternity, until their muscles ached and their clothes were stained red with their own blood. Until at last the brambles ended, and they stumbled out into the light again. 

“Whoa,” said Amanda, lowering her axe and letting the head drop to the ground, leaning against the handle for a moment as she tried to catch her breath. “Is that a  _ castle _ _?”_

“Something ain’t right,” muttered Cross, and the other two Rowdies shuddered at his words. Amanda straightened and shouldered her axe — it might come in handy in whatever fight lay ahead — and she squinted against the backdrop of the sun. 

The castle was derelict, rather shabby, with crumbling stone walls and vines creeping toward the glass-less windows. More brambles covered the base of the structure and rose toward the roof, the bottom-most branches spreading from the wall of thorns that surrounded the courtyard. It looked abandoned, but Amanda could feel eyes on her, ones that were hungry — that voracious, hostile presence that was waiting. 

“In there,” said Gripps, between clenched teeth, and Amanda tasted that bad magic smell again. 

“Okay,” she said. “If they want us to go inside, then go inside we shall.” The Rowdies looked at her with identical worried expressions, and she put on her bravest smile. “It’ll be okay,” she said. The words didn’t help, not really, but at least she had tried. “Come on. Maybe the castle isn’t as scary as it looks.” 

Amanda regretted those words as soon as they had hacked through to the door. It had been cold outside — Wendimoor was in its cool season, and the hours of sunlight had not fully dried their saturated clothing — and inside it was frigid. Their breath fogged in the air and they all shivered, teeth chattering. 

“Don’t want to be a popsicle,” said Vogel, arms wrapped around himself and frost already settling on his hair. Amanda could practically feel her eyeballs freezing in their sockets, and she wished she had to power to summon them all good winter coats. Just one knife had been a struggle, and she worried at the cost that four axes had tolled from her — the mad dash through the brambles had been a wild rush of misplaced, manic energy that was faltering now that their pace had slowed. 

“I-It’s okay, Vogel,” she said, and smiled to offset the chattering of her teeth. “Just a little cold.” The tower was dark, and she missed her red lantern, abandoned in the woods somewhere. She gestured at the stairs — the castle was more of a tower, stone steps curving up and up and up — they were tight enough that she couldn’t see to the top when she tried to peer up through the center. “Up?” 

The Rowdies smiled weakly at her — the answer was yes, but they weren’t happy about it. Amanda started up the stairs, one hand trailing along the stone walls for balance as she trod the uneven steps, with Vogel and Gripps behind her and Cross as the rear guard. And they walked. 

They walked. 

And walked some more. 

“Don’t seem right,” wheezed Cross from the back. “How’d they fit all these stairs in here?” 

“Shit,” said Amanda, because they had been climbing for far longer than the height of the tower had indicated. They should have reached the top by then, but when she climbed to the next window and peered out of the slit in the stone, the ground was barely a dozen feet below them. All she could see was an arc of brambles surrounding the castle, and what looked like an ocean further beyond. “We haven’t gotten anywhere!” 

“Little witch, little witch,” called a voice, and Amanda startled, her foot slipping on the damp stair and Gripps catching her elbow to stop her from falling. She was shaking, and she was no longer sure if it was from the cold or from fear-based adrenaline. “Little witch, what do you see?” 

“I see many things,” said Amanda, tilting her head and pitching her voice so that it would be carried by the castle’s echoing acoustics. “Who are you?” 

“Someone who cares,” said the voice. The Rowdies shivered behind her, strangely quiet, and she  _ knew _ . 

“Where’s my friend?” she said, starting slowly up the stairs again. The stairs got more slippery, with green moss spread thick and water coating the stone, and the air began to warm. A sliver of light appeared, growing wider as she climbed — a doorway. “What have you done to him?” 

“Only what his fate decided,” said the voice. It was bored, masculine. A hint of an accent — possibly British? Not that it mattered — whoever it was, they were trouble. Amanda could feel  _ that _ . “That’s far enough, boys.” 

The footsteps behind her stopped, and Amanda spun, hand slapping against the stone of the curved wall when she nearly overbalanced. The stair behind her was empty. 

Her Rowdies were gone. 

“What did you  _ do to them _ _?”_ she yelled, spinning and launching herself toward the doorway. It led to a room, small and empty of everything but a single wooden stool, which she kicked against the wall in frustration. “ _ Hey _ _!”_

“Now, now, no need to be rude,” chastised the voice, and Amanda grit her teeth. “You were kind enough to accept my invitation, so don’t be a rude houseguest.” 

“Your  _ invitation _ _?”_ spat Amanda. “You stole my friends! Give them  _ back _ _!”_ Her axe met the stool, and the wood shattered into a thousand pieces, each one wafting to the floor as a delicate flower. She sneezed, the pollen clinging to her clothes as she stumbled back toward the stairs, and she covered her nose with her shirt to keep from breathing in more. She felt  _ woozy _ , and that was  _ bad _ . She needed to keep a clear head and find her Rowdies before they got hurt. Or worse. 

“I can’t do that,” said the voice, false sympathy oozing from his tone. “You see, little witch, I only need them to get to you. You’re the prize here, little witch, not them.” 

“I am not a prize,” said Amanda. She leaned against the stone wall for a moment, let its cold touch burn away the flower-induced haze. 

“You are to me,” said the voice. “You’re the most valuable prize of all, little witch.” 

“Do you know who I am?” said Amanda, and began climbing again. The walls were sticky and she swore under her breath, wiping her hands on her pants — the smears left behind were dark and she swallowed bile when she smelled the metallic scent.  _ Blood _ . 

“Of course I know who you are,” said the voice, annoyance creeping in. “You’re the key to my plan.” 

“Must not be a very good one,” muttered Amanda. The voice seemed like it was getting closer, but it was hard to tell. It was also getting more and more difficult to walk, as the vegetation of the steps had leveled up from simple moss to an entire ecosystem — moss and grass and plants that she could swear were screaming as she stepped on them, flower petals scattering under her boots as she sped up her pace as much as humanly possible on the treacherous terrain. 

Little witch, little witch, where are you going?" purred a new voice, this one female and deep and  _ loud _ . Too close, and Amanda stumbled, banging her elbow on the wall. She turned back – a foolish move, she knew it even as she did so – and gasped when she saw what was crawling out of the doorway she had exited and was squeezing up the stairs, scales scraping on stone like fingernails on chalkboard.

A crazy shitballs  _ dragon _ .

"You've gotta be kidding me," said Amanda, and dashed up the stairs, grass and flower petals flying from beneath the tread of her boots as she ran. The dragon chortled – there was no other word for the sound that came from within its sinuous neck, quivering up from its red-hot belly, and Amanda had no intention of being a dragon snack that day.

"Don't you want to meet a real dragon?" sang the male voice, and now that there was a dragon below her and adrenalin sending her senses into overdrive, limbs shaking, Amanda could discern that the first voice was coming from above. Right where the dragon was chasing her.

"I don't know, man," she said between wheezes, scrabbling up the stairs that now sported garlands of thorny branches as well – her fingers were bleeding from where she had grasped at the upcoming stairs to keep from losing her balance. "Maybe the dragon wouldn't want to meet  _ me _ ."

Because she was  _ mad _ . Angry.  _ Furious _ . These assholes had taken her friends, and she wouldn't allow that to happen. She would  _ not _ .

_ Go on, get _ .

Martin had told her that, once. To save her and Vogel, he and Cross and Gripps had gone into a fight they knew they  couldn't win. Had suffered under the hands of Blackwing for months before Amanda was able to rescue them, and then she had sent them away.

_ It's done _ , he had said, when she asked him and them to find the army, to see if her visions were real. She couldn't go – she was still learning from Watki – but she should have.  _ She _ had abandoned them by sending them away, and she hated that she could so easily push them away for her own gain.

No magic was worth that price.

"Ha!" Amanda hauled herself over a particularly gnarly patch of thorns and staggered through a doorway, stumbling as the flat floor disoriented her. A man stood by the window, across the room, wearing a white suit that looked out of place in Wendimoor. "Hey," she said, and he turned – he looked old, but he held a curved wooden stick that she knew on instinct gave him more power than first impressions showed. "What did you do to my friends?"

"They are of no matter to beings like us," said the man, and Amanda dodged to the side as the dragon shoved her nose into the room and snapped, teeth snagging Amanda's ragged cloak and tearing a long gash in the fabric. "Now, now, Suzie, mind the wallpaper. I just had it redone."

There wasn't any — Amanda wasted a precious second glancing at the walls, and was nearly baked alive when the dragon breathed a stream of fire at her. She rolled to the side and gasped at the dry heat, hotter than opening an oven and feeling the wave of heat, and she screamed as her flesh began to melt.

"Interesting," said the man, crouching in front of her as she fell to her knees and wailed. "How useless. Your powers are self-directed — you have no control at all." He looked away, disappointment clear on his face. "Suzie, this was a waste of time. She's no Witch Queen, after all. There must be someone else."

Amanda looked at her hands, the flesh peeling back and crackling black from the heat, white bone rising to the surface, and she screamed again.

_ Go on, hurt it _ .

"Martin," she whimpered. "I can't do it."

_ You're not going to have to worry about that shit anymore. _

"I can't," she whispered, as the dragon dragged its heavy, scaly body into a room that was not built to hold it, maw gaping to reveal crocodilian teeth. The white-suited man had returned to the window, turning his head to speak to the dragon, words she couldn't parse together through the pain.

_ Own it! Control it! Make it your reality! _

"It  _ is _ reality," whispered Amanda.

_ We ain't got no place to be but here for you. _

"No," said Amanda, and stood up, skeleton hands and melting flesh be damned. "No," she said again, and the dragon and the man turned to look at her, wearing identical expressions of incredulity. "Unacceptable," she said, and blue light arced from her bones, from her very soul, reknitting her flesh and replicating everything down to the green nail polish that always made her think of Gripps, sweet Gripps, who could put three perfect coats on her nails in the back of a moving van.

Cross, sweet Cross, who cracked jokes and read the mood of a room better than anyone.

Vogel, oh, Vogel, the sweetest of them, who believed in her even after she had given up on herself.

And Martin, who gave her a bat and told her to  _ hurt it _ . Not the car, not the physical object, but to hurt what made  _ her _ hurt. To take back some of that pain, and own it.

"Make it your reality," said Amanda, and planted her feet in the messy, torn earth scattered on the floor. "How about this," she said, conversationally, unaware that her eyes had taken on a strange shape to the iris, that the rest of her was crackling with more blue lightning than a thunder god, "how about you fucking  _ stop this _ ."

"Well, well, well," said the man. "Maybe you are the Witch Queen, after all."

Amanda roared.

She howled for the friends she loved, for the blood dripping from hundreds of scratches, for banged elbows and the terror in her heart that her friends might be hurt. She screamed for betrayals and violence and lying under a train, for smashing car mirrors with baseball bats and sleeping in the back of a van in a pile of warm bodies she knew would never hurt her. She yelled until her voice was hoarse and the room was filled with enough lightning to power whatever she fucking wanted, and she poured all of that rage and pain and love into a single motion and she did what she wanted.

She ripped open a hole in reality and shoved the dragon and the white-suited man through a barrage of water, watched them fall into an empty cornfield and crush the yellowed stalks, saw the dragon twist and shine and crumple to the ground as a pale-haired woman, and Amanda smiled grimly and let the portal close.

Amanda sank to the floor and gasped, tried to catch her breath, her fingers tingling from the spent energy and her head aching like the worst hangover she had ever had — Todd's fault, like always — and stared as the window the white-suited man had been previously looking through shifted and warped and became another doorway, leading to stairs that went further up.

"Not the top of the tower, after all," she whispered, and climbed up on wobbly legs to stumble onward, picking up the axe she hadn't realized she had dropped.

The brambles were worse, overpowering the rest of the vegetation and choking the life from the pretty flowers she had seen below. A sickly sweet smell wafted from the crushed petals, and she covered her nose and mouth with a scrap torn from the dragon-rent part of her cloak to keep from breathing it in as she climbed.

The stairs ended at a wooden door, old and carved with emblems of dragons and toads and swords, all of it barely distinguishable from the rest of the wood due to age and the amount of brambles that seemed intent on strangling life from not only the floor and the flowers but the castle itself. Amanda hefted her axe, heavier in her remade hands that she remembered it being earlier with her Rowdies, and sent it slamming into the brambles and the door. She swung and hacked and breathed ragged breaths until the brambles let go and the door gave up the ghost to her relentless assault, and she shoved her way through the splintered wood into the room beyond.

It was full of flowers. She choked under her makeshift mask, nearly overwhelmed by the floral scents, tripping on the brambles that had embraced the flowers rather than crushed them. They coated everything – the floor, the walls, the three mounds on the floor, and a raised platform at the center of the room.

"Oh, no," whispered Amanda, peering closer at the mounds and running toward them, wrenching at the brambles and vines and flowers to reveal three familiar faces, eyes closed and deathly still. "No, no, no, no," she said. "This isn't how it's supposed to happen!" She placed trembling fingers against Vogel's still face and he did not stir. "Vogel?" she said. "Cross?  _ Gripps _ ?"

She leaned closer, pulling down her makeshift mask, and a sob built in her throat when she saw the faintest movement of their chests, felt the little puffs of air as they breathed when she held a hand to their noses.

"You're alive," she said, tears rising in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks – she choked on them, the salty wetness and the perfume of the flowers, scrambling to her feet and spinning, searching for a fourth. "Martin?" she called. There were no more mounds, even after she circled the entire room.

Her boot caught on a root hidden under a voluminous bunch of flowers, and she fell forward, halting her fall and banging her knees by grabbing hold of the raised platform, a yelp escaping her as the thorns there tore her skin. Something pale under the dark brambles caught her eye and she gasped, regaining her feet and ripping, tearing at the brambles and flowers to uncover a familiar hand, a familiar arm, and the rest of the Rowdy that went with it.

"Martin," she whispered, placing her hands on either side of his face. He was as still as his brothers, his skin cool to the touch, and repeated his name when he didn't respond. "Martin, wake up." She moved her fingers to check for a pulse and gasped when she saw the smear of blood her touch had left behind. There was too much of it for just her small cuts and scrapes, and she pulled aside the detritus of her initial scrambling of the thorns.

She found the source of the blood, and she sobbed. Bright red blood coated the Rowdy's jacket and coat, stemming from a jagged cut that oozed fresh blood when she pulled back the stained fabric to see how bad it was.

"No," she moaned, grasping his hand with bloodied fingers. There was no reassuring squeeze in return, no movement from the Rowdy, who for all his stillness could have been sleeping.

He wasn't breathing.

"No," she whispered again, and sank to her knees and sobbed, her forehead pressed against the wooden frame of the bed — for that's what it was, her Rowdy laid out in a mockery of sleep, his blood painting the yellow flowers red — her hand still clutching his, praying that it wasn't real.

A reality without one of her Rowdies — without  _ Martin _ — was not one she wanted to live in.

“Not my reality,” she whispered, getting her legs under herself and standing, gently resting Martin’s hand on his chest and letting go so she could place both her hands flat in the mess of blood on his stomach. “This can’t happen,” she said, louder, stronger, “because  _ I won’t let it be real _ .” 

Where she pulled the energy from, she didn’t know — she had been drained by her fight with the dragon and the white-suited man, and the electricity sparking from her hands pulsed and flickered and died as the last of her reserves poured into Martin, stitching and repairing and  _ healing _ until her fingers pressed only on smooth skin under the blood. She moved, reaching over to tilt his head toward hers, and tears mixed with the dirt and blood that streaked her face. 

“Please,” she whispered. “You have to wake up, Martin.” He didn’t respond, and she swallowed a sob. Was this how it ended? Her alone at the top of a tower, with three sleeping Rowdies and one who would never wake? She climbed up onto the raised bed and lay down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder, and cried. “I can’t lose you,” she whispered into the dirty fabric of his jacket. “I need you.” 

Amanda laid there for a long while — she wasn’t sure how long, only that her muscles were stiff when she finally sat up and wiped eyes that had no more tears to shed. She was so very tired, tired enough to know if she laid down beside him again and slept that it was doubtful when she would wake up again. 

More than that, she was  _ angry _ . Angry that her friends had been taken from her, that they had been hurt  _ because _ of her — because of whatever the man in the white suit had wanted. He had called her the Witch Queen, but she wasn’t. 

“This isn’t some stupid fairytale!” she yelled, then stopped. 

What if it was? 

She looked down at Martin, pale and still on the bramble-set bed, and her mind raced. Ever since her Rowdies — minus one of their number — had arrived to whisk her away, everything had seemed to follow a set path. 

Follow the magic instructions. 

Chop through the hedge of thorns and vines. 

The castle. 

The stupid, stupid  _ dragon _ .

The inhabitants of the castle in a sleep like death. 

“This is whackadoo shitball insane,” she whispered. “Who the fuck thought  _ Sleeping Beauty _ was a good idea for an adventure?” She wracked her memories — prince used the sword to cut through the brambles, he fought the dragon, found the princess in the tower. 

_ Of course _ . 

Amanda leaned over Martin and looked down at her friend. He looked… peaceful. Something she wasn’t used to seeing in her Rowdies — they were always moving, always reacting to some stimuli, external or internal, and despite his apparent calmness, Martin was always in the midst of it. Encouraging and escalating whatever energies they were messing with that day, Martin was always there. 

“Hey, Martin,” she said, and leaned down, close as a hug, then closer, her nose nearly brushing his. “I love you.” 

And she kissed him. 

Amanda kissed him, and kissed him, until he finally kissed her back, his hand rising to curl his fingers into her hair, and she drew back to look down at him, and he looked back at her, bemused. “Hello,” he said, his voice a sleepy rumble, and she began to cry again. 

He was  _ okay _ . 

“Hi,” she said. Muttering rose from across the room and she turned, one hand splayed on Martin’s chest for balance, to see the other three Rowdies rising from the floor, swiping at the brambles and vines that clung to their clothes and swearing when the thorns scraped their skin. “Boys,” she said through her tears, and the scrambled to crowd around the raised bed, touching her arms and shoulders and reaching for Martin, as if only by touch could they be certain that they were okay. 

“That was scary, Boss,” said Vogel, and Amanda caught his hand in hers, her other hand still cupping Martin’s jaw, unable to let go for even an instant. 

“Who was that guy?” said Cross, reaching for Martin’s free hand — the one that Vogel wasn’t already squeezing in his own hands. “Martin, you okay?” 

“That knife got you good,” said Gripps. 

“Drummer?” said Martin, and Amanda looked at him — saw the concern in his eyes, not for himself, but for  _ her _ . 

“I kicked their asses,” she said. “And you were-” She stopped, closed her eyes, and tried again as she blinked away tears. “You were  _ dead _ .” The Rowdies keened at her statement, Martin silent and watchful, and she leaned close until her forehead rested against his, her eyes nearly crossed just to glare at him. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Rowdy Boy. You promised you would go where I go, and I can’t— I can’t, okay? I can’t lose you.” 

“Ain't got no place to be but here for you,” he said softly, and she kissed him again, because she couldn’t bear to do anything else. 

“I love you,” she said again, because it was true, and she needed him to hear her say it, to  _ understand _ . She leaned back and met his eyes, soft and blue and so very much alive, and she wiped her face on her sleeve. “I  _ love you _ .” 

“I love you,” said Martin. Amanda finally let him up — climbed down from the bramble-strewn bed and let his brothers drag him upright, let them run their hands over him to verify that he was whole and well again — and she took his hand in her own the moment they started for the doorway, toward steps she prayed were less in number than the ones they had climbed. 

She gave him the axe, which he hefted with an ease her weary limbs could appreciate. The other three still had theirs — the gleaming weapons swinging languidly at hips or propped against shoulders — and Amanda could  _ breathe _ again, to have them all at her side, laughing and howling and  _ alive _ . 

It wasn’t a happily ever after — they still had so many more adventures to go, and she still had so much to  _ learn _ — but Amanda and her Rowdy 3 (all four of them) were together again, and that was enough. 

It was enough. 

 

—

 

_ Elsewhere, in a cornfield:  _

 

“That was a colossally stupid idea,” said the Mage, flat on his back in the dirt. Something was poking into the small of his back, and he prayed it was only an ear of corn. Of all the cursed worlds to end up in, the Witch Queen had somehow sent them back to her own world of origin; where he had found Suzie. Speaking of his current apprentice… “Suzie? Are you alive?”

“Fuck you,” muttered Suzie, from somewhere off to his left, and he grinned at the moon high above them, round and faceless and pale. 

“Good enough,” he said. 

Time to set his new plan in motion...

 

—

_FINIS. (Nam iam...)_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [everythingremainsconnected](http://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingremainsconnected/pseuds/everythingremainsconnected) for the [magical flower fics](http://archiveofourown.org/series/868173) that are excellent
> 
> Thought process = magic flowers? Sleeping flowers? Magical flowers that make you sleep?? Sleeping Beauty??? With Rowdies????  
>  ~~what a terrible idea~~
> 
> This work was Not Edited.


End file.
